Phil Lilley

Anyone going? https://mscenicview.com/ Mark your calendars and sign up today for this event at the Meramec Scenic View Resort. Gregg Lamb, one of our fellow members is the owner and we'll have access to some great water. Fishing: You have at least 3 different floating/fishing options: Birds Nest to Garrison’s Garrison’s to MSV and MSV to Onondaga. We can self-shuttle to any of these locations. Both the Courtois and Huzzah are also close by. If you don’t want to float you can easily wade up and down from Greg’s gravel bar or the lower Huzzah is about a 15 minute drive and you can wade there. Dining: We’re providing diner on Friday; breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturday, and breakfast on Sunday. BYOB. Campfire on Friday and Saturday night. Lodging: Greg’s lodge sleeps 16-18 people. Full bathrooms, showers, kitchen. (take a look at the website). MSV isn’t a crazy campground. This is a very laid back, and quiet location. RSVP So is this free? Unfortunately not, but for $35 per night per person will pay for your lodging and food for the weekend. If you can just make it for the day, please come out and fish, hang out, eat, and just enjoy a beautiful spot. Please donate at least $10 so that we can cover all of our expenses. This is a very low-stress, fun, and relaxing way to get out and fish a really nice section of the Meramec while meeting and having fun with some of your fellow MSA members.

Come by our dock and have one of the guys show you how to rig the worm... it makes a difference.

Ha... I want to come down there and throw a hopper real bad.

It's open and very useable.

No there's not way to tell. Could be a week... could be till Christmas.

Trout fishing on Lake Taneycomo has been pretty good lately. One of our guides, Bill Babler, said his clients caught 77 trout in a 4-hour trip yesterday, both on the Berkley's Pink Power Worm and night crawlers. I'd say that's pretty good "catching". Our generation schedule has been consistent too, with no generation at night through the morning, then moderate flow in the afternoons ending about sundown. But that changed today when problems at Bull Shoals Dam caused a shift in providing power from the group of hydro dams in our grid. Here's the jest of what happened, from an email forwarded to me this Friday morning from Southwest Power Administration via Missouri Department of Conservation, Fisheries Division. "Bull Shoals regulation stopped working yesterday, and the plant was placed in manual mode." Regulation means, "running water round the clock to adjust for the small fluctuations in power demand". One dam in the system must be running water, generating power, all the time so there's no interruption of power when there's fluctuations in the grid. Regulating shifted to Table Rock Dam so now Table Rock has to keep running at least 35 megawatts (may be less, I don't know for sure) of power 24 hours a day till something changes. This minimum flow isn't much water. It's less than one full unit. The current at our dock is barely noticeable and it doesn't affect dock fishing at all. I does, though, affect wading below the dam and there is pretty good current down through Short Creek to Trout Hollow. Bottom line, we like this minimum flow because it helps trout eat more, and more often. When food is moving down with the current, fish can't help themselves - they eat. We're still on 2-pound line watch! We're telling as many people as we can - it makes a big difference! Blake, who is one of our dock hands, told me yesterday that he's converted many guests fishing off the dock to 2-pound line. After not getting a bite, he will offer to tie a short piece of light line on to their line, retie the hook and let them try again with 2-pound tippet. Wallah! They start catching trout. All it takes is about 24 inches. Why 2-pound line? Our lake water is very clear and trout see the line. I know I sound like a broken record, reading my fishing reports but I'm not going to lie, or try to sell you a different lure or bait just to sound different. The Berkley Pink Worm is still catching most of the fish for guides and second best thing is night crawlers. The go-to jig color last weekend at the Branson Firemen's Benefit was black and brown. Just ask Gerry Dwiggins, long time trout tournament fisherman, who landed and winning trout - a 23.65 pound brown trout. He hooked it below the Branson Landing and took 45 minutes to land. He was using a 3/32nd ounce jig and 2-pound line. Our brown trout do make a run to the dam area in the fall to spawn, although they are not actually successful creating any young trout. They go through the actions and lay eggs but because of water flow and temperature, none hatch. Some browns are showing up early and are being caught on small scud and midge patterns. They are seeing some nice rainbows up there too but wade fishing will be limited to close to the shore because of the minimum flows for now. Boating to the dam, though, should be easy. There's plenty of water to get to at least the Big Hole and fish the area from a boat. I'd throw a variety of jigs colors starting with black/brown, sculpin and even white. Again I'd use 2-pound line and either 1/32nd or 1/16th ounce jigs. View full article

Well, it does seem like jigs catch big browns but worms and minnows do too. PB not so much except for the last state record, previous to Frank. Scuds will catch them in the fall up close to the dam and some of those are seen before caught. As far as locating them and catching on jigs, none that I know of lately were seen first. It does seem like jigs of all sizes and colors do catch all kinds of fish, not just trout.

We'll see what we can do to promote circle hooks. I liked the video.

What this is simply about is 2 long time friends, neighbors, hunting and fishing buddies trying to work out an issue between them. Unfortunately some of it showed up on a public forum that both have been members of for more than 10 years. Both are frequent contributors. They both knew the other on the forum, nothing was hidden. Now, hopefully they can work this out between the 2 of them and heal. The “disabled” guy in the initial story and his wife are super hurt by all this but they have taken steps to forgive the offense. We cannot, should not, take up an offense for either party because it does not involve us. So I’m closing comments here, and will not allow it to be brought up again on this forum.

Hardly anyone is prepared to land a big trout. I'm not sure our G3 livewells are big enough and we're on the lake everyday. Our pontoons don't. Our jon boats have a long enough well but the opening isn't big enough, plus the water isn't deep enough. But on a tournament day, there's a big group of very good trout fishermen targeting fish and it does seem like they are more likely to land one than most anyone else. Both have been caught on jigs. Guides fish crawlers every day and they do catch nice fish but not the big browns. I mean big, big browns. Not so far. The idea behind the measure tournament is catch a lot of trout of all sizes and release them without harm. I like the idea of scoring the length of the 8 longest trout... might be something to kick around.

I like it. It's tough to get people to spend the extra money on them though. I'll check it out.

We are seriously kicking around an idea for next year's tournament. It will be an artificial only tournament - for sure. Because of the warmer water in the fall, we have quite a few dead fish weighed in. We have anglers travel to the lower end of the lake and they can't keep their fish alive in their live wells. So, we are considering making it a measure only contest, like some of the ones we hold in spring and the winter seasons. We will undoubtedly lose some of the teams but I believe this is the only responsible way to hold a fall tournament. Fish will be caught, measured and released immediately, no exceptions. Even if there's a large fish caught, like the big brown caught Saturday. If it's killed, it will not count towards the team's results.

Can't add any more... Looking forward to next year's adventures.

I'm still in Mass. but can report another big brown was caught at the tournament today. Gerry Dwiggins was fishing down below the Branson Landing mid day when he hooked a big fish on 2 pound line using a jig. Not sure what color. Fought it 45 minutes before landing. Ran it back to the resort - their livewell wasn't big enough... and he has a big bass boat. Measured 37 1/4 inches at 23.65 pounds. It is a triploid. This is the only pic I have at the moment. The fish is still in our big tank reviving. Seth Turner and his partner I understand took 2nd with 11+ pounds. The rest will have to wait till I get a better report from the guys. Duane told me it was a line-class record but again, it's not clear what agency he was referring to.

The ones I saw were small... may 1.5 inches long. But there were lots of them.

We're back, safe and sound. No bear encounters... only saw one and he ran the other way fast. They are hunted hard in this area. The limit is 7 per person (local) per season. It was a learning experience for us. We got taken by boat 57 miles up from the lodge http://alaskan-adventures.com/ Holitna River by Rodney in a flat bottom jon boat so we got to see the river we'd float which was good. But it was hard to take it all in. I set waypoints on my Garmin InReach, marking spots for camping and holes where to find fish. https://www.facebook.com/AlaskanAdventures/ The river changed from a big open, slow moving river to a faster, shallower river with more visible spawning chum salmon. The water got clearer as we went up too. The spot we picked for our first night turned out to be the best fishing spot on the trip. We camped there for 2 nights. There were tons of chum spawning and lots of dollies and grayling feeding on eggs below the beds. We caught them on beads using our chuck-and-duck method plus I caught them on a sculpin/ginger 1/8th ounce jig.. yes there were sculpins in that part of the river. No dry fly activity which was disappointing but when you have an abundance of eggs to eat, who cares about a bug you have to chase! The next couple of days, we floated and casted jigs from the boat, catching mostly grayling and a few dollies. I caught a couple of white fish which added to my species list. And then there were the nasty chum and an occasional silver salmon which were fun. At some point we were torn... we had to pick from staying up where we knew we could catch the dollies, grayling and silvers or push down river to where we could catch what we were after, the sheefish. We pushed on. We did take to a group of 4 guys, 2 rafters, who had been on the river for 5 days at our first campsite. They had been dropped off way above a weir in the river and had been in fish the whole way down. Truth is we got nailed by a headwind on day 4 and 5 and gave up on day 5... called in the cavalry and they came got us about 10 miles short of the lodge. The last stretch was NW and there was a NE wind blowing 20-35 mph... it kicked our butts. Made fishing tough but we managed some silvers and a few sheefish in one hole Dan, the owner of the lodge, had pointed out. We could have ventured in to one of many backwater areas where monster pike lived but honestly we didn't want to mess with them. They weren't the reason we were there. Plus we didn't have any wire leaders!! We did manage to land a few small ones in the river but I'm sure they were the one cutting the line and losing many of my jigs!! The clients staying at the lodge were catching tons of pike, silvers and sheefish every day, mainly throwing spoons, line spinners and jigs and fly fishing with big streamers. Their guides knew where the holes were, a big advantage over us and our float. But like I said, it was a learning experience for us. If we did it again, we'd do it different. But I can say that for about any trip to Alaska I've taken. Videos to follow in a few days (when I get back from vacation - seeing grandkids).

Follow us on my Twitter Account. Plilley. I don't use twitter much... so hopefully it will work.

There hasn't been much change in generation and fishing patterns since my last fishing report for Lake Taneycomo. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been turning on their turbines at noon every day and running water through the afternoon, shutting it down about dark. They've been running four units full during the week and two to three units on weekends. Water temperature is holding steady at about 53 degrees and water quality is good. The dissolved oxygen content is good (see chart). It's been foggy on the lake, sometimes not clearing up until late morning. And on cloudy, rainy days, the fog hangs around all day. Boating in the fog is tricky at best. When the water isn't running, you can make headway just moving slowly without getting up on plane. But if the water is running, it's tough without running fast to stay on top of the water -- but then you're running too fast to see someone coming at you. Then there's the fog banks, those dense clouds that look like everything else. You think you can see far, but all of a sudden, you can't. And if someone is just on the other side of the outer cloudy wall, you're in trouble. Then there are the kayaks that now frequently float Taneycomo . . . need I say more? You really can't be a hurry on this lake in the summer. And for the most part, people have been really wise and courteous. Our fishing guides continue to bring in nice limits of rainbows for clients, morning and evenings. And it's the same refrain -- night crawlers and the pink worm. Duane Doty is still throwing his stick baits early in the mornings and catching nice rainbows and a few brown but no monsters in the past couple of weeks. Read my last report for a detailed account on why you should be using two-pound line with our clear water right now. Stitch and Jim frequent the resort spring, summer and fall and are serious about their fishing. Jim told me they started "blowing up" their night crawlers this week and it made a huge difference. Just ask Stitch. She caught this 25-inch brown off the dock one night while fishing with an inflated worm, using two-pound line. Man, what an angler! Not many people have the skill and patience to land a fish like that on two-pound. I fly fished a couple of times this past week, catching fish on small flies - #18's and #20's. I'm using midges and scuds mainly, 7x tippet. I'm not "tearing it up," but the trout I'm catching are good size and in very good health. I'm fishing mostly the trophy area, but early the trout are feeding on midges, so using a zebra midge under a small indicator 12- to 48-inches deep is working around actively feeding rainbows. Target those fish that are rising if you can. Again, 7x tippet is a must. I'd use fluorocarbon, too. And I would stay small --#16 to #20-- and brown has been working good for me. One other thing I wanted to mention pertaining to being responsible for rules and handling trout. Rules: If you put a trout on a stringer, in a basket or in a live well, it's yours and counts toward your daily limit. It is illegal to "cull" or release trout and replace one fish with a bigger fish. Possession limit means how many fish you can have in your possession at any one time. Possession means in your ice chest, in your freezer. Your possession limit is a two-day limit or eight trout. You cannot legally fish for a week and keep your daily limit each day and store them in your freezer. An agent can ask to inspect any place he/she suspects there are illegal fish stored, so no place is exempt from inspection. Last thing. Don't catch, kill and release. If you're bait fishing, most likely the trout you catch will swallow the bait. If you are not going to keep a fish that has swallowed the hook, cut the line and let it go back without touching the fish. It has a much better chance of survival if you do that than to try to dig out the hook. And if you have to handle a trout, use a damp rag. Using a dry rag wipes off the protective slime on a fish's body, exposing it to bacteria in the water. Good Luck! View full article

3 people No license, stamp. No boater's license. Driving a boat under the influence. Over limit. 2 browns under 20 inches. Fishing with bait in the trophy area. Possession of slotted rainbows. Outstanding warrants out of state. I think that's all they got them for...

I thought we had an option to "ignore" someone. I don't know...